


an offspring of witnessed death

by louscr



Series: i said i wanted to worship something [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Entity Shuffle, Gen, Hunt!Jon, Slaughter!Martin, Stalking, Time Skips, Violence, but like.. lite version
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 07:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21352696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louscr/pseuds/louscr
Summary: Jonathan Sims is not born a snarling, ravenous thing. He is born quietly, grows quietly, and watches in silence as slow years pass him by: as his mother and father are buried, and his grandma tugs him through the aftermath.(His eyes are much too wide, much too watchful. His teeth are not yet sharp.)
Series: i said i wanted to worship something [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539373
Comments: 24
Kudos: 213





	an offspring of witnessed death

Jonathan Sims is not born a snarling, ravenous thing. He is born quietly, grows quietly, and watches in silence as slow years pass him by: as his mother and father are buried, and his grandma tugs him through the aftermath.

_(His eyes are much too wide, much too watchful. His teeth are not yet sharp.)_

When he's nine, a book with drawings of a lonely deer is snatched from his hands. The aching feeling of it echoes like foresight in his bones. Jon does not chase after the boy holding the book, merely watches and ignores the pang of hurt curled low in his gut.

He is nine and his grandma prefers not to meet his eyes, _too much like your father's_ she lies, but her hands are still gentle in the rare moments when she hugs him close. She brings him books and he loves both them and her, though he carefully flips the order around when he says it aloud. Something in him that he's yet to understand thinks its a good idea, and Jon doesn't question it, only watches.

He continues to grow.

_(It is not noteworthy. Not yet.)_

* * *

Jonathan Sims is eleven, and a new book with drawings of a large spider is snatched from his hands. The aching feeling of it is _memory_, sharp and vivid in his mind. Jon slinks carefully after the boy holding the book, watches the stiffness in his posture, the emptiness in his eyes as he walks.

He does not acknowledge the nausea swelling in him, doesn't think of how the book had pulled his fist up, ready to knock on a door beyond his perception.

The boy holding Jon's book knocks.

A door swings open and Jon watches, shaking, as some huge, hulking thing consumes the boy holding his book. The fear feels like ice in Jon's veins as those eight eyes meet his, and suddenly, in a snap, is buried under something else, leaving the scent of acrid fear and sweat ringing in Jon's ears.

_(This is not how senses work.)_

There is anger, sharp and bright, but above that is morbid, creeping interest, curling low in his gut where the pain used to sit and fixating on how the door sounds as it clicks shut behind those many legs of Mr. Spider.

Jonathan Sims does not move for a long time, still shaking, watching a closed, unmarked door.

* * *

He is thirteen now, and he accidentally bites his lip when he catches the smell of fear and the too familiar creak of spider's silk, and his teeth slice clean through the tender skin.

_(Many things that he has never encountered are familiar to him now, and Jon doesn't question it, only watches.)_

He heals much too quickly.

When the slice in his lip is merely a faint scar _(it should've been months later)_, Jon spots something that tugs at the interest curled languid and comforting in his gut, like a full, warm meal. There is a man, his eyes dark and furrowed as he peers through a shop's window, and he smells of the putrid candles Jon's grandma lights in the windows on cold nights and burnt hair and wrongness.

Something in Jon _hates_ _him_ with a cold fury.

When he leaves the shop's window, Jon follows from across the street, dodging past the flood of hurrying adults easily, slight frame slipping between narrow gaps. He is watching, eyes open and intent, and underneath the shuffle of bodies around him, Jon can suddenly smell the heady scent fear. He doesn't realize he's smiling with all those newly sharp teeth until the man's searching gaze catches his and he flinches violently backwards.

Jon continues following, watchful until he grows bored of how the man scrambles across the city, and wanders back to his books and the dusty floor of his grandma's house.

_(He's missed dinner, but he's not exactly hungry anymore.)_

His grandma doesn't fuss when he doesn't eat that night, only ushers him off to bed and goes to sleep herself. Jon stays up and watches the play of shadows across his ceiling, listens to the wind and the slow thunder of blood in his ears that's been there since the man had started running. When sleep finally catches up to him, he dreams of the candle man and how the waxy skin holding him together splits and melts beneath claw-like nails.

In the morning, there's a spider outside his window. Its gone by the time he's eaten breakfast.

Jon tells himself he is not afraid of it and its web. The words don't taste like truth.

Most words don't anymore, not even the ones by which his grandmother tells him she loves him.

_(She only loves the echo of Jon's father in his eyes.)_

* * *

Jonathan Sims is fifteen and running, faster than he ever has before. It feels good, like his legs are longer than they were the last step and his lungs are growing, growing, growing. Running is easy. Running feels right, in a way that settles warm in his bones.

He is also gaining, the coppery scent of blood and torn sinew getting stronger with every stride. There is a figure ahead of him, growing larger with proximity.

They smell like blood, so much blood, and Jon's heart is pounding with it.

They dart around a corner, and as he runs Jon listens, breathes.

He can hear his own footfalls, the crash of glass against concrete, blood against a split palm, and steady, even breathing that is not his own.

_(Jon does not know what these things mean.)_

He sprints around the corner, tumbling instinctively into a roll as a fist, something glinting and blood-soaked clutched in it, swings for his throat.

As soon as he stumbles to his feet, the next swing catches across Jon's upper arm, slicing through cotton and skin as the person he's fighting smiles viciously, all teeth and sharpness to match the shard of glass in his hand.

_(Jon, for a moment before he's _not_, is terrified. And then he can only smell blood and feel that hungry hole in his gut.)_

_(He didn't know how to fight before this moment, blood-laced and brutal.)_

It ends when Jon surges forward, shoulder digging in and sending them both to the ground. The boy, who has to be about Jon's age, drops the shard of glass on impact, and before he can recover Jon's fingers are at his throat—his nails like claws, sharper and longer and new—and Jon hesitates.

The boy's eyes are alight with the thrill of violence, nearly red in the odd lighting. He's smiling and his lips and teeth are bloody. But he still looks human, and Jon, with a start, realizes what he's doing—what he's about to do.

He scrambles away, not looking back as he sprints out of the alley, still covered in both their blood. The boy, blue eyes still full of frenzy, doesn't try to stop him or rekindle the fight.

_(He can smell, hear, taste the boy following him, all blood and tearing sinew still, and Jon finds he doesn't mind.)_

_(Jon won't notice that the boy, whose name he learns is Martin, smells like cobwebs in attics under all that blood until much, much later.)_

* * *

He is seventeen, and Jonathan Sims is _hungry_, hunting. Following the scent of creaking webs and dust.

The trail feels so familiar, achingly so.

_(He doesn't think he wants to be following it, he'd rather go find someone who smells of dripping wax or warped plastic, but can't pull himself away.)_

The streets grow threateningly familiar. Even after six long years of trying to forget.

Jon can see the door, plain wood still unmarked and he can't tell if it's fear or rage stirring in his chest. Maybe both.

He knocks.

It feels like the door has been waiting for him, impatient. It swings open on silent hinges.

His feet walk him inside without his will, and there is something in him, something _other_, snarling with rage and fury and drowning out the fear. It is trapped, immobilized for a few precious seconds, until he stands before the spider, the one that haunted him for so many years.

_(The snarling thing inside him cannot be held for long.)_

He is still small in comparison, but this close, directly in front of the thing that is Mr. Spider, he no longer feels it. Instead, Jon feels blood in his palms and jagged teeth in his maw and nails like talons. He feels fit to burst, as though his skin is drawn too tight over distended bones, crackling as they shift.

He feels strong in a foreign, dangerous way. He can feel blood roaring to meet its kind just beneath his skin, starving.

_(Jon isn't sure he likes the new, tearing snarl caught in his throat. He wants it to be quieter, deadlier, and suddenly it is, shifting to a low, rumbling threat.)_

Jon can smell fear in the air when he lunges, nails and teeth sinking in with cold intent.

It's refreshing for the fear to not be his own.

_(He doesn't stop seeing the too large silhouette of Mr. Spider though, still waiting for him to knock again, even though he remembers leaving its corpse tangled up in its own web.)_

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think of maximum feral jon lol
> 
> talk to me about this au, or tbh any tma stuff on my [tumblr](https://archivizt.tumblr.com/)! and this fic is cross posted [here](https://archivizt.tumblr.com/post/188894867965/jonathan-sims-is-not-born-a-snarling)!


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